Wednesday, June 23, 2004

More RIP DRM

Eloquent geeks sometimes grow up to be science fiction writers. This is helpful because science and technical topics are often difficult to understand and dull, and it is a real skill to make them accessible and interesting. I have not read any of Cory Doctorow's work, but this extended piece on why DRM will fail covers cryptography, the history of digital content, the birth and evolution of copyright, with the sort of aplomb I last saw on Stephenson's "In the beginning was the command line". Good for him.

I have written about DRM on this website so many times that I'm not really sure there is anything else to say. Content companies understand that DRM is not popular, but think people will put up with some inconvenience in one area of access (what, my movie expires?!?) for some convenience in another area of access (I can play a movie on my phone!). People may, but only for as long as they have to, and since the inconvenience is artificial it can only be so long. (Thanks to RE for the link).